Earlier this month Community Pharmacy England (CPE) chief executive Janet Morrison revealed that contract negotations for “next year’s settlement” have not begun despite expectations they would commence last autumn.
And last week, the negotiator told C+D that it was still awaiting the mandate from the government and the NHS to begin negotiations for the 2026/27 deal, saying it now expects them to start early in 2026.
CPE said it was continuing to stress the crisis facing the sector and the urgency of making progress towards a sustainable future, noting that this was discussed with the pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock at their most recent meeting.
The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) and the Independent Pharmacy Association (IPA), however, both told C+D yesterday (January 20) that negotiations must start now.
Read more: Morrison: Next pharmacy contract ‘expected’ to be one-year deal
“It is vitally important that the next round of negotiations begins immediately so that a satisfactory settlement can be reached,” an IPA representative said.
“Last year, the CPE board was backed into a corner and compelled to accept a deal that failed to provide adequate support for the sector,” they continued, adding that “many contractors are now showing losses in their accounts”.
They also stressed that “accepting the wrong deal for contractors is not leadership” and argued that an “unsatisfactory deal will only compound their debt situation”.
“Reform” the contract
“It is vital now that any settlement curtails this impossible cash position for contractors and liquidity is immediately restored to contractors’ pockets,” they added.
“Without this, the forecast by frontier economics” – which revealed last March that around half of pharmacies did not turn a profit in 2024 – will “only continue to haunt the sector”, they said.
Read more: Contract negotiations delayed amid government ‘conflict’
NPA chief executive Henry Gregg also told C+D it’s “vitally important the government begins contract negotiations as soon as possible to give pharmacies the certainty they need to plan for the future”.
“Pharmacies face looming increases in business rates and are unable to plan past April,” he said, adding that “many are hanging on by their fingernails despite receiving their first funding uplift in over a decade”.
Read more: Morrison: Risk services must be ‘stripped out’ if funding short
Gregg called for an uplift “that covers the escalating costs...and makes progress towards filling the black hole of historic underfunding that has left so many on their knees”.
“We also need to see a long overdue commitment to reform a pharmacy contract that is fundamentally broken and unfit for purpose,” he added.
Read more: All the headlines: Community pharmacy funding deal
It comes as Morrison told delegates at Sigma’s annual UK conference in November that there continues to be a “delay” to pharmacy contract negotiations as there is “still wrangling going on” between the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) and the Treasury.
And in October she warned that the negotiator could be forced to tell the government it must “strip” out “core” services if the next contract does not deliver enough funding.
Morrison also warned in the same month that the outlook for the 2026/27 funding deal could be “gloomy”, noting that “difficult choices” will have to be made if there is a “poor settlement”.
